Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Hinglish

Read the following in another International Herald Tribune article entitled 'The Queen's Hinglish' gains in India":

Paul Theroux was criticized by one reviewer last week for dwelling on what one of his American characters in his new work of fiction, "The Elephanta Suite," describes as India's "mummified" form of English - a language, the heroine reflects, where words like utterance, miscreant, thrice and jocundity remain in daily use.

Geez. I use three of those four words myself. I must be in the wrong country!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

DOING THE NEEDFUL

Thank you for posting that, Father.

For a time I was unfortunately employed in the sales call center of a company that had begun to transfer its financial customer service operations to India. When we were talking to a customer who had a problem with a bill, we had to call India and talk to Tammy or Alex to get it resolved.

In the course of every conversation, the phrase "do the needful" would be used a half dozen times as Tammy promised to resolve the problem.

There were other "Hinglish" words and phrases they used, but I can't think of them now.

Fr. Charles Ledderer said...

"Do the needful." Thanks. I think I shall start using that one!